Re: Cabela's epoxy rods!
It depends on how viscous the epoxy gets...which depends on how you are melting the stick.
If like you said you just heat the rivets first and push the stick as if you are putting out a cigarette then you will be fine doing this on the bottom of the boat while on the trailer.
I preferred to have the boat upside down since I heated the epoxy once it was applied to the boat to smooth it out and it will run due to gravity
When I used the 3M epoxy sticks on my 12' aluminum I used a torch and heated the stick while the boat was upside down because I wanted the epoxy to drip into the cracks and seal her up good(boat is from the 60s and was dinged up a bit).
So I say you can do it either way and that stuff is really easy to deal with in my opinion. Some folks on this site claim that gluvit is superior, I haven't tried it. The cabela's sticks are much cheaper($9 for 3 sticks) so it is not a bad way to go. My boat used to leak and now it doesn't so I'm pretty satisfied.
There are pictures of my work here:
http://forums.iboats.com/showthread.php?t=329166
